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Comment by _bxg1 | Hacker News Reader

Presumably this investigation was prompted by the Nyko dock catastrophe.

I'm a software guy; what do these revelations imply about which other accessories may or may not be unsafe to use, whether they work or not? In particular, third-party charging cables. My girlfriend uses her MacBook charger to charge her Switch sometimes, and now I'm worried it could brick it one day.

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I find it absolutely mindboggling that Switch's are bricking when 3rd party accessories are plugged in isn't being treated as a bigger issue. Everything I've heard is that the Nyko dock is at fault, but why the hell aren't people mad at Nintendo? Then again, I haven't followed it very closely, maybe people are? All I've read is how the dock is bad, and nothing about the Switch's apparent fragility.

People are somewhat mad, but Nintendo's only recently bothered adopting anything akin to industry standards around power adaptors. Even the 3DS is proprietary, and the Switch dock itself is some voodoo magic with a chip inside.

USB C itself has been sort of a minefield of adaptors getting the spec wrong, so I doubt anyone is surprised that docks are buggy and even capable of damaging parts.

As long as she doesn't use the charger to power the dock (so only directly to the device itself) then she's probably okay.

I just wish the included adapter had a longer cable. The 6-ish feet is just long enough to get you off of a wall, but not quite long enough to move away comfortably. I assume that it's due to the spec though.

It's from May 29, 2017.

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